DOC’s culture wars revealed

Interesting comment Wayno - it works that way for most NZers - but when a "buddy" of the Minister (at that time) complained - usually a prominent business person with stakes in tourist interests - things changed lickity split. This in my view is what motivated the huge restructure at DOC - the usual perception by business interests (usually based on greed so they can get a bigger slice of the pie) that DOC needed to play better with business - in some cases those partnerships would work OK - Air NZ for example. But how the hell can DOC ever justify with working with total A-holes like Fonterra?

they doubled the hut capacity for the guided hut at routeburn falls when it went against the aspiring park management plan. there was a claim the hut was expanded before approval was granted, a complaint to the ombudsman was upheld that the hut shouldnt have been expanded but nothing was done to stop the doubling of overnight guided walkers using the hut. then there was a the massive increase in approved helicopter landings on mt tutoko. 80 a day from memory which would mean up to 80 flights in and 80 flights out. it would make the area sound like milford sound when aircraft are flying around. not to mention the proposal for the longest monorail in the world being proposed that would have to bowl a 50m swathe through the forest for tens of kilometres and the proposal to put a road tunnel under the routeburn and dump the toxic bored out rock on the hollyford river plain.

OK, so this is not sticking to the topic but I can't resist saying this about being buzzed by helicopters. A dear friend had this happen to him whilst climbing so he and the others in the group retaliated by performing brown eyes. The pilot caught up with the group socially later on and related how offensive his passengers found this display. Said pilot was merely amused.

Said pilot was being paid. Despite what he thought about the whole thing you can bet he told his tourits he would be ringing the constabulary about the whole thing